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Hitler's Private Library : The Books that Shaped His Life by Timothy W Ryback

The obvious question raised by this book is: can reading have the power to civilise? Adolf Hitler was a voracious if undiscerning reader who owned an estimated 16,000 books, which were scattered round his various headquarters. At the end of the second world war, most of the collection was pillaged. From what remains, however, Timothy Ryback has tried to glean some insight into the emotional life, hatreds and enthusiasms of the Nazi leader.

There are few surprises. Rather than yield with humility to writers and their books, Hitler used them merely to bolster his preconceptions. One essential dislike, of course, formidable in its simplicity, pervaded his soul: Jews. So he took what he wanted from such wretchedly anti-semitic tracts as Henry Ford's The International Jew and Paul Lagarde's German Letters, which advocated the 'removal' of Jewry from western Europe.

Hitler considered himself a thinker, but his 'painfully flawed grammar' and